The Magna Carta is a revolutionary document that influenced the English system of common law and was a precursor in the development of England’s – and later Canada’s – constitutional monarchy.

On June 15, 1215, King John affixed his seal to the Magna Carta, which placed limits on the monarch’s power to overrule the law and protected the rights of ordinary people. The document introduced key principles that hold true in democratic societies today, including equal justice for everyone, freedom from unlawful detention, the right to a trial by jury, and rights for women.

It is important for the Magna Carta to be honoured and remembered as a document that changed the course of history. The fundamental traditions of equality and freedom that characterize our democratic society – particularly that nobody, not even the Crown, is above the law – originated in this important document.

Therefore, Her Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, enacts as follows: